“Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” (9 p.m., HBO, TV-MA) profiles a poet, storyteller and activist who has been in the public eye for more than half a century. Or at least members of the public who follow poets.
Dubbed the “poet of the Black revolution” during the tumult of the 1960s and the civil rights and Black Power movements, Giovanni became a familiar face and a household name at an early age. She was a frequent guest and participant on the PBS talk show “Soul,” an innovative series that showcased Black talent when few other venues were available. She shared the couch with such luminaries as Muhammad Ali, James Baldwin, Jesse Jackson, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Gladys Knight, Miriam Makeba, and Stevie Wonder. “Soul” presented extensive interviews between Baldwin and Giovanni, a deep dive into literature and culture that might not find a place on contemporary television.
A 2020 documentary about the series, “Mr. Soul!” profiled its producer Ellis Haizlip, had its TV debut on PBS’s “Independent Lens” and currently streams on Max.
Over the years, Giovanni straddled the line between popular and accessible works, including children’s books and university professorships. She has received dozens of honorary degrees.
“Mars” tells her story in her own words, citing her poetry and stories, accompanied by a propulsive jazz score and a kaleidoscopic collage of historical footage, personal snapshots and past interviews.
Giovanni believes that childhood memories can be painful for Black people, so her identity is based largely on forgetting. “I remember what I want and make up the rest,” she explains, revealing a storyteller’s secrets.
— “Secrets of Polygamy” (10 p.m., A&E, TV-14) interviews survivors of families adhering to the extreme fundamentalist version of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints religion, who have resisted the mainstream Mormon church’s renunciation of the practice of creating extended families with multiple wives and mothers, some groomed from childhood for the task.
Young men and women describe a culture of cruelty, violence and coercion. Young women describe the grim prospect of being married off to much older church patriarchs in the name of faith, and young men describe being brutalized because they are perceived as rivals to the men running the religious racket and maintaining their authority with deadly force.
— ABC airs the 2023 two-part documentary profile “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields,” produced by ABC News.
Not unlike her contemporary Jodie Foster, Brooke Shields was cast as a child actress in roles of a very sexual nature. Both were acting and modeling as toddlers and each cast as child prostitutes, Foster in “Taxi Driver” (1976) and Shields in “Pretty Baby” (1978).
Ours is not the first era to wrestle with the idea that child actors may be exploited. In the 1930s, novelist and film critic Graham Greene was sued successfully by 20th Century Fox when he reviewed “Wee Willie Winkie” (1937) and suggested that its star, Shirley Temple, was depicted as a sex object.
Look for Foster in a new chapter in HBO’s continuing “True Detective” franchise, debuting Sunday night.
“Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields” was directed by Lana Wilson (“Miss Americana”).
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— On three episodes of “NCIS” (CBS, r, TV-14): a rideshare to the cemetery (8 p.m.); bioterror in a parking lot (9 p.m.), a Marine’s good deeds go punished (10 p.m.).
— “Antiques Roadshow” (8 p.m., PBS, TV-G, check local listings) enters its 28th season, in Alaska.
— At loose ends, a woman meets a handsome prince on a European vacation in the 2017 fantasy “A Royal Winter” (8 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
— A kidnapping victim’s father needs answers on “The Irrational” (10 p.m., NBC, r, TV-14).
CULT CHOICE
A bored Pennsylvania coal country housewife falls in with a petty criminal in the 1970 drama “Wanda” (4:15 a.m. early Tuesday, TCM, TV-14). Director, writer and star Barbara Loden has been described as a female counterpart to independent film pioneer John Cassavetes. Like the main character in the new PBS series “Funny Woman,” Loden shed her provincial roots and accent to become a beautiful regular on TV comedies, including “The Ernie Kovacs Show.” Her husband, Elia Kazan, cast her in the Broadway drama “After the Fall,” written by Arthur Miller and considered a thinly veiled account of his marriage to Marilyn Monroe.
SERIES NOTES
“America’s Got Talent: Fantasy League” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-PG) … “Hell’s Kitchen” (8 p.m., Fox, r, TV-14) … “Name That Tune” (9 p.m., Fox, r, TV-PG).
LATE NIGHT
Jimmy Fallon welcomes Seth MacFarlane, Mel B and JID on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC) … James McAvoy and Rachel Dratch visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC).
